Category Archives: My Life in Books

It’s been a year since the last #AprilFeelsDay, and so much has changed for the #romanceclass community since then. The books keep coming and so do the invitations to hold events at different locations, and I’m constantly amazed at how this community continues to grow. And not just in size, but also with the books that it puts out.

People line up to pay for their copies of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’.

So, in case you weren’t aware, today was the launch for the “eighth” Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I know I made a fuss about it with the blog post yesterday, and I fully intended to come to the event on time. I even slept earlier for it!

Well guess what. I still woke up late for it, even with a freaking alarm set. F. M. L. I didn’t catch either the countdown or the unboxing of the books, which were done at the same time as the rest of the world did it.

KATE EVANGELISTA being interviewed by Mina Esguerra during the No Love Allowed book launch.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Kate Evangelista has been a longtime fixture on this blog. Over the years, I’ve interviewed her, reviewed her books, and even had lunch with her. She’s a nice lady, who you can’t help but feel happy for when she gets nice things.

And one of the nice things to happen to her recently was the launch for her newest book, No Love Allowed. Published by Swoon Reads – a Macmillan publishing imprint – No Love Allowed tells the story of Didi and Caleb and serves as a sort of prequel to No Holding Back, which I reviewed recently.

Here’s the book’s blurb!

Caleb desperately needs a fake girlfriend. Either he attends a series of parties for his father’s law firm with a pretty girl on his arm, or he gets shipped off to Yale to start a future he’s not ready for and isn’t sure he wants. And sadly, the last unattached girl in his social circle has just made the grievous mistake of falling in love with him. Fortunately, Didi, recently fired waitress and aspiring painter, is open to new experiences. As the summer ticks by in a whirl of lavish parties, there’s only one rule: They must not fall in love!

So about four days ago, past and present participants of #romanceclass, as well as dozens of Filipino romance novel enthusiasts, met up at Pegi Waffles in San Juan to wallow in feels for most of the afternoon. It was a month in the planning, and to be quite frank, I thought it would just be a gathering of the usual suspects.

So the last time I was at the National Book Store Warehouse Sale, it was a little crazy. To quote my blog post at the time:

“I spent about 10 minutes just looking in disbelief at the whole mass of people that was there at the Warehouse Sale so early in the morning. Who are these people and what did they do the night before? Did they camp out in front of Crossings or something?”

This time, I was once again invited to a preview, and since i’m not that stupid (also it was my rest day from work), I accepted the invitation and went there posthaste. And boy was it a good decision!

While there’s admittedly a lot of excitement fighting it out with a crowd for a book you really want – and actually winning that fight, too! – there’s also a lot to be said about walking into a sale with no one to fight with and having the luxury to just take your time.

Maybe because of that relaxed atmosphere, I was able to buy more books than i did two years ago. To wit:

I know I’ve never talked about it on this blog, but I do have a traditionally published book out there in the wilds of Metro Manila. It’s60 Minutes: Interviews with People Who Inspire, and we even had a launch at The Podium and everything.

That was last year. NOW WE’RE NOMINATED FOR AN AWARD! We’re battling it out with several other books in the non-fiction category, and I would really appreciate it if you guys would go over to the online ballot and vote for the book!

First of all, I’d like to apologize to the handful of people who read this blog. Real life has been a lot hectic lately, and it’s been really hard trying to find the time and the energy to finish reading a book, much less update the blog.

I did, however, manage to squeeze in National Book Store’s (NBS) Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) celebrations last Saturday. I couldn’t stay until the afternoon like I wanted, but I did manage to catch a little bit of the morning activities while I was there.

The Scholastic Asian Book Awards (SABA), a joint initiative of the National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) and Scholastic, is currently looking for entries.

The Scholastic Asian Book Award is awarded every two years to an unpublished manuscript (original or translation) targeted at children aged six to 18 years, written by writers of Asian descent, living in Asia, who are 18 years of age and above.

All submissions must be in English, and a chapter book or novel of 6,000 words or more. The story must be set in Asia and should not be accompanied by illustrations. Entries are limited to one submission per writer.

Entries must be submitted, complete with six copies of each manuscript. The manuscript must be typed double spaced in Times New Roman font, size 12. An official entry form must be attached to each submitted entry. Submissions can be made by mail to: SABA Secretariat, National Book Development Council of Singapore, Geylang East Public Library, 50 Geylang East Avenue 1, Singapore 389777.

The closing date for the 2014 SABA is Oct. 21, 2013, 5 p.m., Singapore time. The results will be declared in May 2014, at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content. For more info, visit www.scholasticbookaward.asia.

It was a lot more work than I thought it would be, as it seems I have accumulated far more books than I thought I had over the course of many, many years. And it was well into the fourth hour of my clean-up — I kid you not, it took literal hours to do this thing — that I realized I only had a limited amount of space in the apartment I share with the rest of my family.

There really was really only one thing left for me to do: Sell my books.